Multiobjective formulation is an effective method to reduce environmental impacts of livestock feeds

Abstract

Environmental and economic performances of livestock production are related largely to the production of complete feeds provided on commercial farms. Formulating feeds based on environmental and economic criteria appears a suitable approach to address the current challenges of animal production. We developed a multiobjective (MO) method of formulating feed which considers both the cost and environmental impacts (estimated via life cycle assessment) of the feed mix. In the first step, least-cost formulation provides a baseline for feed cost and potential impacts per kg of feed. In the second, the minimised MO function includes normalised values of feed cost and impacts climate change, P demand, non-renewable energy demand and land occupation. An additional factor weights the relative influence of economic and environmental objectives. The potential of the method was evaluated using two scenarios of feed formulation for pig, broiler and young bulls. Compared to baseline feeds, MO-formulated feeds had lower environmental impacts in both scenarios studied (−2 to −48 %), except for land occupation of broiler feeds, and a moderately higher cost (1–7 %). The ultimate potential for this method to mitigate environmental impacts is probably lower than this, as animal supply chains may compete for the same low-impact feed ingredients. The method developed complements other strategies, and optimising the entire animal production system should be explored in the future to substantially decrease the associated impacts.

An approach to achieve overall farm feed efficiency in pig production: environmental evaluation through individual life cycle assessment

“…The environmental impacts of the diet ingredients were obtained from the Ecoalim dataset (Wilfart et al 2016) of the AGRIBALYSE® database using the Recipe method 2016, applying the attributional approach. Values of 500 km for cereals and 100 km for meals were used for the transport of ingredients from the farm to the feed factory (Garcia-Launay et al 2018), and a value of 30 km (Cadéro et al 2018) was used for the distance from the feed factory to the pig farm, taken from the attributional life cycle inventories of the ecoinvent version 3.1 database.…”

“…For step 2, the first task was to define an environmental impact score to minimise. The environmental impacts of the least cost diet were used for each line as normalization factors for each impact, as proposed by Garcia-Launay et al (2018). Then, weights were applied to obtain an environmental impact score (EI score) to minimise as a new objective function:…”

“…Improving feed efficiency by adjusting the composition of the diet to the nutritional requirements of a group or an individual animal (precision feeding) has also been investigated (Pomar et al 2009;Remus et al 2019;Monteiro et al 2017), and some related methods, decision support tools, and systems are under development (Brossard et al 2017 and. Other methods are available for environmental diet optimisation either by accounting for the choice of ingredients to be incorporated (Garcia-Launay et al 2018;Tallentire et al 2017) or combining diet optimisation with minimum nutrient excretion impacts (Mackenzie et al 2016). Life cycle assessment (LCA) has already been used for environmental assessment of various aspects of pig production systems (Lammers.…”

Estrategias de alimentación, evaluación del impacto ambiental y valoración económica de dietas de porcino ecológico

“…Las dietas formuladas con mayor impacto de PC son las de cerdas lactantes y lechones en base a FEDNA (9,03 y 8,55 kg P/T, respectivamente) y lechones según ITAB (8,13 kg P/T) y menor la de cerdas gestantes (3,78 kg P/T). Valores inferiores fueron encontrados por Garcia-Launay et al (2016), dónde el impacto de una dieta estándar mixta (40% crecimiento / 60% acabado) convencional producía un impacto de demanda de fósforo de 3,4±0,36 kg P/T. En cuanto al impacto CED, destacan las fórmulas, según FEDNA, de la fase de lechones y acabado (4.236 MJ/T pienso y 4.046 MJ/T pienso, respectivamente), próximas a los valores obtenidos por Garcia-Launay et al (2016), de 4.442±351,2 MJ/T, formulando por objetivos económicos y ambientales.…”

A method to estimate the environmental impacts from genetic change in pig production systems

“…This has the potential to be utilized to integrate environmental impact considerations and even objectives into breeding programs. The possibilities for using LCA modelling in this way have already been demonstrated for pig systems in relation to diet formulation (Mackenzie et al 2016;Garcia-Launay et al 2018).…”